Sera wasn't one to enjoy mansions, but Anri's had been alright with its sparsely furnished rooms and sneaky access into the city. He had left her the keys and one instruction before heading off to see Dorian. "Don't blow anything up."

  But that order ended up an epic failure.

  She snorted with laughter at the sight of the rubble-filled cellar basement and blocked access. Not to mention all the tunnel access to the city was caved in and unusable. The impact that had totaled Anri's subterranean tunnels had also impacted some of the new Chantry building developments. Like they could ever get that off the ground anyway after what happened during the Mage Rebellion. Although Cassandra had sent some funds and construction support for a new chapel, if anything to appease the stuffy nobs at Starkhaven who couldn't mind their own business.

  Earlier she had had to deal with the Kirkwall Guard-Captain, Aveline, who had been furious and demanded what had caused Anri's mansion to partially collapse. Bad cooking was Sera's answer. The woman was more than happy to leave it as Sera's problem to tell Anri, the one comte she did not want to cross least she get a lifetime of permanent headaches. Dealing with Varric's trouble was more than enough.

  Sera was still able to use the mansion's entrance foyer and its upper-level rooms, which she was camped out in for now.

  "Guess we have to find another base. Maybe use Hawke's house. He has the sneaky way into Darktown." She thought over her options for secret ways to go about her fun and business.

  Dagna came up behind her looking guilty. "There's no way we can clear this out?"

  "If we got a pick and big hammer and twenty dwarves to mine this shit." Sera screwed up her face, then eased her expression into a cheerful grin to reassure her woman.

  The dwarven redhead in her simple work overalls and cotton shirt sighed, feeling bad that her Ravensky invention was the cause of Anri's home to be mostly destroyed.

  When she had been testing one for fade channel resonance, she had applied too much tuning that caused a shockwave underground. Fortunately, Sera had been around to catch her when she was blown back. They had to escape the crumbling tunnels and collapsed cellar.

  "Look, Anri won't care. You gave him the rocks and results. That's all that matters." Sera saw the guilt on her Widdle's face. "So let's crash out at Hawke's place for now."

  Just then Sera got a head-flick-bang, she called the inbound ravensky call and answered it. Naturally, magic stuff gave her the shits. But this was Dagna's invention and she trusted her woman to make good tools that didn't invite demons to the dinner table. So, she had no problems showing off her use of her ravensky.

  "What's up Hawkee bird?"

  "Hawkee bird? You must be getting old to go into the dad-jokes stage of your twang."

  "Ha ha, laugh it up you relic." Sera just remembered she had to ask him about her and Dagna crashing out at his place. "Oh, right, can we crash at your place?"

  "Why?"

  "We, um, Anri's place is kind of needing renovations. The kitchen was shit anyway." She frowned when she felt Fenris in the background and stiffling a laugh. "Wait, were you gonna tell me when you looped your boyfriend on the line?"

  "I didn't get the chance. Now I do, Fenris is in and Alistair and Fiona are too."

  "Fiona? Why'd Anri bring you back?" Sera didn't mince around with her shock and distrust for the former mage rebellion leader.

  "It's great to hear from you, too, Sera. Hopefully you're staying good." Fiona sighed, holding back her equal disappointments.

  "I'm always good. It's just you nobby magic people cause scary shit that always needs fixing."

  "Sera," Hawke said with a firm tone to stop her rising tensions.

  "Fine. Fiona's back. Yahoo, let's all do a pow wow," she said sarcastically with low enthusiasm. "So where is everyone?"

  "Kirkwall," Hawke non chalantly answered.

  "And you're using this way to talk? Pfft, tell me where you are and we can use our mouths like the Maker intended."

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Hawke gave her the rendezvous point. Sera hung up the call. She and Dagna left Anri's mansion and started a casual walk across the town square, but an arrow dropped before her with a note tied on the shaft. She picked it up, saw the message and shoved the arrow in her quiver.

  Dagna was enthusiastically curious as to the update Sera had received. "Are you going on another heist?"

  Sera shook her head with a frown. "Alienage. Looks like slavers taking elf kids and nobles getting paid. Gotta see Merrill first."

  Their direction changed as they left the cleaner paths of High Town and entered the seedy underbelly of Low Town, where all sorts of scum, desperate and discarded, were out on display with the hopes of coin or food to land on their laps.

  They weaved their way through the crowds with the focus of reaching the elven district at the far end of the town. It was one that had seen a better paint job. Some of the hovels had dark, smudgy, scorch marks from when the templars were attaching mages years back. A few of the hovel damages had been repaired thanks to Varric's reconstruction efforts, but some were still shells and ruins, patched up with cloth and bits of whatever was lying around to make a wall or door.

  The Kirkwall elves congregated around the one big tree that as an odd sight for an industrial type of city. Apparently it was the elves only connection to the old ways. This sentiment made Sera inwardly laugh as knew better of what the ancient pisshead elves represented. And the biggest one of them all pretended to be their friend. Now he was out to destroy their world and shit on their existence. The baldy ancient arsehole was no better than that darkspawn coryphetits. Spit on the lot of them if it were her way.

  But Hawke's friend, Merrill, seemed alright. Although she still was distrustful of the woman being a mage, but Hawke reassured her that the exiled Dalish was there to help the people. Indeed, that's all she did and being an exile gave the woman some brownie points. If anything, the elf was pretty on the eyes, although she couldn't hold a candle to her Widdle.

  A youthful elf with flowing black hair and bright-gray, puppy-like eyes turned to greet Sera upon her approach. Merrill always wore a simple samite dalish gown and her tree-like face tattoos weren't as cool and pretty as Anri's, but they suited her soft and slender facial features.

  "Oh, Sera, good day." Merrill cordially greeted her and saw Dagna coming up at the rear. "Dagna, a pleasure."

  "Dagna gets a pleasure and I only get a good day?" Sera said, mostly to tease the woman because she was a serious person, so poking for her reactions was fun.

  "Oh, no, did I say something wrong?" Merrill sighed feeling bad. "I've lived here for years and still can't get greetings right."

  Sera laughed. "I'm only janking with you. Nothing serious." Her expression sobered to business. "I got word of some elf kids going missing. Do you know anything?"

  Merrill perked up: her eyes filled with hope. "Are you here to help? Because with Anri and Hawke gone, I wasn't sure who to talk to about it."

  "Hawke is back, but you can tell me, because if bad people are taking kids, I'll bring them back and make the nobs pay."

  "Great." Merrill sighed with relief and told Sera what she had learned. She directed her to one of the merchant elves who was running a stall near the sea side of the district.

  The middle-aged elf woman was doing her best to run her business and not be distracted with worries for her child. Sera could see the strain of the woman's concerns from her expression.

  "Merrill. Good day." The woman cordially greeted her neighbor and saw Sera approach. Her eyes widened with hope when she noticed the elf girl armed in rogue gear and a longbow on her back. She would offer a prayer to Mythal if the girl was there to help her.

  "I hear your kid's gone missing." Sera asked with a soft tone.

  "Please, are you here to help. Because I've gone to the city guard and they just told me kids run off to play all the time and come back." The woman fidgeted with her fingers. "But no kid stays gone for more than two days."

  "How old is your child?" Sera's voice was calm and gentle.

  "My daughter, Latana is eight, she and her friend were playing around the dock areas. Only her friend came back." The woman began to cry. Merrill went to comfort her.

  Sera frowned, feeling anger on the woman's behalf. Those stupid guards didn't even want to bother. She'd have words with Aveline about it.

  "Who's her friend? I'll see if I can track where she could've gone." Sera asked.

  "Shiella lives next door to me over there." The woman pointed to one of the hovels. "Please, I need to know where my daughter is."

  Sera nodded and went to talk to the young girl with light-brown hair and a bony body in a ragged dress, who was sitting out the front of her home drawing on the ground with charcoal. She frowned when the image as a disturbing figure of a hooded demon. The girl was frantically scratching the lines to form the image, like she was trying to exorcise a demon from her head.

  Dagna gasped when she recognized a venatori mage from the haphazard and jagged lines of the girl's drawing.

  "Shiella?" Sera calmly said the girl's name.

  The girl didn't stop drawing, her mind too focused on getting the image out.

  Sera knelt down so he shadow covered the image. The girl stopped and looked up.

  "I was sent by Latana's mother to help find her, do you know where she is?" Sera carefully asked with gentle tones so as not to alarm the girl.

  Shiella's face contorted with fear.

  Dagna sat down next to her and began asking about the drawing, complimenting her skills.

  Shiella began to speak when she saw her drawing being the focus of the conversation. After a while of talking, the girl stopped and returned to her sketching.

  But they had learned enough to update Latana's mother with a promise they'll find her daughter.

  "Right. Time to pay Aveline and the guards a visit. Need to give some of them a good kick in the backside," Sera said with a grouchy face as they left Low Town for the Viscount's Keep.